


Night Clouds

by greygerbil



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Makkachin is Dead, No Banquet No Video AU, fwb to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26426257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Georgi isn't quite sure if Victor actually meant to callhimabout Makkachin's sudden death, but he's willing to help nonetheless.
Relationships: Victor Nikiforov/Georgi Popovich
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12
Collections: Rare Ships!!! on BINGO 2020





	Night Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Makkachin dies/is dead in this fic.
> 
> Rare Ships On Bingo prompt was: Dogs, cats, hamsters, and other pets.

When Georgi woke to Sviridov’s _Snowstorm_ waltz, he fumbled for his phone in the darkness and realised only after it was already in his hand that the song was not his alarm but the tune for incoming calls. Squinting at the bright screen, looking between Victor’s name and the time, 2:06 am, with bleary exhaustion, he finally pressed the button with the green receiver.

“Victor?” he only managed.

“Makkachin is dead.”

Georgi sat up, head heavy as lead. The words had reached him as plain syllables and sound, but he had trouble processing their meaning.

“What?”

“Makkachin,” Victor just said.

It was only because he sounded choked that Georgi did not ask him if he’d called the wrong number. Not that he did not care – when they were younger, he’d often played with Makkachin, later walked him alongside Victor when they both happened to be headed home at the same time, since they lived in the same direction from the rink, and the dog had always greeted Georgi happily when he followed Victor to practice. Still, why would he be the one Victor called in the middle of the night about Makkachin’s passing? They had slept together, yes, a few times since the start of the season. Georgi had hidden from the pieces of his memory of Anya in Victor’s arms and Victor had seemed to chase something with Georgi, though his friendly, meaningless smile hid perfectly what that could be; but though Georgi had painfully learned that he was still as unable as ever to separate sex and love, he doubted Victor even thought of him as a friend.

“I’m sorry,” he offered belatedly.

“Can you come over? I need to... I can’t keep Makkachin here.”

Georgi understood that, at least. Perhaps it was impulsive to want to get rid of the body of a seventy pound poodle in the middle of the night, but he wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep next to the corpse of a beloved pet, either, and he knew how much Makkachin meant to Victor.

“Yes. We’ll think of something,” Georgi said as he folded back his blanket and stumbled to his feet.

-

The fastest way to get to Victor at this time of night was on his bicycle and the rush of cold, wet November air blew the cobwebs of sleep from Georgi’s head. By the time he rang the doorbell, he felt almost ready to hold a conversation. Victor let him in without a word over the intercom, but then, who else would be here at this time of night?

The elevator, polished metal smelling of lemon-scented cleaning agent, moved quietly up to the fourth story, where Victor’s spacious flat was located. A rectangle of fluorescent light cut into the darkness of the hallway, Victor’s shadow elongated in its middle. When he spotted Georgi in the dim glow, he stepped back into his flat.

Georgi followed and closed the door behind himself. A short hallway led into the living room and the large adjacent kitchen. Victor sat on the sofa next to Makkachin’s bed. He was pale and red-eyed and staring down at his dog, who laid curled up there much like he often had when Georgi had come to Victor’s place. Now, however, he did not curiously lift his head to look at the visitor or amble towards Georgi to collect customary affection.

Georgi knelt by Makkachin’s side and suddenly remembered the day when Victor had first brought Makkachin to the rink, much to Yakov’s displeasure, a puppy as small as a stuffed toy. Carefully, he reached out to scratch Makkachin’s neck. He felt lukewarm and still as any piece of furniture.

“What happened?”

“I woke up and went to fetch something to drink from the kitchen and saw Makkachin... well, he didn’t seem aware of me at all.” Victor rubbed his face. “He’s been a little sick lately, but the vet said it wasn’t likely to be anything serious. He was still eating and didn’t seem tired.” Victor worried his bottom lip with his teeth. “I should have noticed _something_.” This sounded more desperate than angry.

“It can be hard to tell sometimes,” Georgi said with a shake of his head.

“Right.” Victor looked at him as if he’d just noticed Georgi in the room. “You grew up on that old farm.” His smile was strained. “This must be pretty boring to you.”

“Of course not. I like... liked Makkachin.”

Besides, he’d moved to his aunt in St. Petersburg to join Yakov’s team when he was nine years old, so it had been a good while since he’d been confronted with any realities of country life, like his father bringing in one of the chickens Georgi had played with in the morning to be prepared for dinner, or the fox getting into the stables, or one of their many half-feral cats losing a fight with a marten or a car. It was true he’d seen his fair share of animals die before, though, by force and otherwise, more than most people born in the city. Victor hadn’t even had any pets before Makkachin.

Silence filled the room. Georgi sat back on his heels, carefully looking up at Victor.

“What do you want to do?” he asked hesitantly. He’d been called over for a reason, after all. “If you want to have him cremated, I can start looking up places, but they probably won’t be open until the morning-”

“No,” Victor interrupted, suddenly launching himself up from the sofa. “I want to bury him on the grounds of my parent’s villa.”

Georgi didn’t need to ask him if he meant right now because Victor was already going for his shoes. If that was what needed to happen tonight, he wouldn’t protest.

Carefully, Georgi extracted the blanket on which Makkachin laid from where it was folded under the doggy bed and wrapped it up around him. Holding the edges, he heaved the body into his arms. Victor held the door for him.

Victor’s car was parked in front of the house. After he’d opened the trunk, he helped Georgi position Makkachin inside while a thin mist of rain shivered in the light of the street lamps around them.

“I hope nobody is looking out of their window or they might call the police,” Victor said dryly, running his hand over the rolled-up blanket that contained Makkachin.

Georgi shivered, shaking his head at him, though Victor was not wrong. Makkachin was big enough to look like a small human body and usually people did not feel the need to bury their pets at three in the morning. It added to the surreal nature of the situation in which he was disposing of the dead pet of a man who hadn’t spoken more than a hundred words to him from April to July and then had fucked him over the railing in an empty rink in August.

It took Victor a long moment before he shut the trunk.

“Should I drive?” Georgi asked.

He wanted to help, but he did not want for either of them to end up wrapped around a tree. The streets were slippery with rain over a thin layer of ice and Victor’s hands were shaking.

Victor frowned, but then handed him the keys without a word, slinking around the car to the passenger’s side. After Georgi had got into Victor’s red Lexus NX and let it hum to life, Victor programmed the GPS with the directions to his parents’ place and huddled in the corner between seat and window, staring outside and, occasionally, over his shoulder, as if he hoped to hear something from the back of the car. There was no noise but the rumbling of the motor, though, and eventually a middling string quartet as Georgi lost his nerve with the stifling quiet and turned on the radio.

“I thought about taking the season off. I should have,” Victor said quietly.

“Because of Makkachin getting older?”

“That too.”

So there was another reason. He wasn’t really surprised. Even as someone who wouldn’t claim to know Victor inside-out, he’d noticed something was off.

“You won the every Grand Prix qualifier you took part in. The season is going well for you,” he pointed out, in a paltry effort to cheer him up.

Victor shrugged his shoulders and Georgi suppressed his annoyance at seeing him wipe away a success that Georgi, who had only just managed to qualify for the Grand Prix Finale, wanted so badly. However, with dead Makkachin in the trunk, he wasn’t going to start a fight about figure skating. It was an art he loved, yet winning competitions was, in the end, just their job. There were more important things in life and perhaps one of those was whatever had made Victor doubt himself this season. Eventually, even gold medals had to get boring, he supposed. Would have been nice to have gotten to the stage where they were so easy to dismiss.

He sighed noiselessly and concentrated on the road ahead, as the drizzle had turned into thick drops of rain now. Though he was both curious and worried about Victor’s reasons, he doubted he would get anything out of him before this dog wasn’t buried. In fact, tonight shouldn’t be for talking at all. Feelings like these had to settle.

When the red-brick front of the Nikiforov’s home appeared before him, with its double-winged front door and black windows for eyes, Victor shifted a little in his seat.

“Don’t stop here. Go on further down the road.”

Georgi did as he was asked against the protest of the GPS. Victor shut it off.

“Here, that gate,” he said, pointing his thumb out the window on his side.

Georgi slowed the car, struggling to make out anything through the sheet of rain. There was a high fence, a dark pattern of spear-tipped rods against the night sky, and though he didn’t see the gate, he trusted Victor knew and parked at the side of the road.

At least out here at the edge of the city, the houses were so sparse and the attached estates so wide that there would hardly be anyone around to see them transporting their suspicious cargo. Trudging to the back of the car, Georgi opened it up. While he did, he saw Victor step up to the fence. There was a beeping noise; an alarm system disengaging, Georgi guessed, as he saw the green light blinking at the height of Victor’s hand, where the blue glow of his phone’s lock screen illuminated a tiny circle of the night and with it a bunch of keys Victor was holding. It was followed by the click of metal on metal and then a gap creaked open in the wrought-iron fence.

Victor walked over, slammed the trunk shut and took his car keys, which were dangling from Georgi’s forefinger, with both of Georgi’s arms now wrapped around Makkachin. Following Victor’s willow-o’-the-wisp of a phone light, Georgi walked onto the grounds with him.

“There’s a shed,” Victor said, halting, staring at Makkachin in Georgi’s arms.

Georgi looked around, but in the wet dark he only saw the meadow stretching around them and in the distance a vague line of trees.

“Where?”

Victor strode away and Georgi had trouble following at his speed, shoes slipping on the muddy grass, desperate not to drop the dog like this was some crude tragicomedy, but also unwilling to stand alone in the much too quiet park with a corpse in his arms.

He saw the shed eventually, its shape muddled with that of the tree trunks. Sounds of wood and stone scraping came from inside before Victor returned with a shovel, clutching it with both hands, his phone awkwardly squeezed between his arm and his side. He looked close to tears, or screaming. If he broke down, Georgi wasn’t sure if he could force him to get back into the car. From the many times they had been in the rink’s gym together, Georgi knew that Victor was stronger than he looked. It was painful enough to see Victor at the brink, besides. He didn’t want him to go over.

“Point me at where to dig and I’ll leave you and Makkachin,” he said, trying to sound as stern and calm as he could.

Victor nodded his head. His hair was heavy with rain and the wind had blown it all over his face.

Gently, Georgi placed Makkachin on the ground and held out his hand for the shovel. Victor stared at the dog again before he looked around for a long moment and finally led Georgi right to the trees.

“Somewhere around here. It doesn’t matter too much about the spot, I don’t think anyone but the gardener goes this far out a lot.”

Following the light of his phone, Victor traced his way back to Makkachin, leaving Georgi standing in the dark. Water had crept under the old pullover which he’d worn as a pyjama and the track suit jacket he had thrown on over it. A stiff wind was blowing. The rain rattled on the leaves and made the trees whisper. In the distance, he saw Victor lowering himself to his knees, still illuminated by the cold blue light of his phone as he unwrapped Makkachin and hugged him close.

Georgi turned away from the private moment and focused on his task. The digging was harder than he’d thought. At first, when he staked out the size of the grave, the muddy ground came away easy, but before the rain it had snowed and the earth underneath was half-frozen and packed tight. Soon enough, he didn’t know if it was sweat or rain running into his eyes. Thunder cracked and lightning made the house way in the distance look like a manor in a horror movie, but there weren’t any ghosts or tragically beautiful gaunt young men and women fleeing curses, just Victor sitting in the dirt with his dead dog and Georgi panting with the effort of digging a grave, hot under his drenched, mud-spattered clothes.

The hole was a bit shallow, in the end, but Georgi couldn’t find a good angle with the shovel to get any deeper. It would probably do, though. Despite being wet and desperately cold, Georgi still tarried before going over to Victor.

“I’m done,” he said, when he’d finally convinced himself to move.

Victor nodded his head, his frightened expression mostly hidden by his wildly dishevelled bangs, before he unwrapped Makkachin fully. He carried him to the hole and lowered him carefully down into his grave. Georgi stood by with the shovel. When Victor rose and gave him a nod, he threw the first spade full of dirt down on the fuzzy body, which suddenly looked quite small, and another, and another, until dirt and torn grass covered Makkachin fully. When he was done, he lifted the shovel to press down the earth, but found he could not hit the earth knowing Makkachin laid underneath. Instead, since he was already stained shoes to hair, he sat down and flattened the earth with his hands.

When he was finished, he looked at Victor. With the rain, he couldn’t say if he was crying, but the breathless, pressed tone of his voice became obvious when he muttered, half-smiling in that plasticky way Georgi had never liked: “This is pathetic. There’s not even a gravestone or anything.”

“You can add it later. I’m sure someone-”

“I’m really going to go home and leave Makkachin here to rot in the dirt.”

Desperately, Georgi looked around himself, and, following a sudden idea, grabbed on to a low-hanging branch that had hit him in the head and back over and over again while he was digging. He tore off one piece and another, shorter one next to it. There was some high grass around the roots of the trees and as he pulled at it, its edges bit into his skin, but he didn’t care.

When he was a child, he’d used to make little figurines like this. This time, he tied the sticks together with the grass to produce a makeshift cross, which he stuck in the wet earth at the head of Makkachin’s grave.

“It’s not unmarked now, at least,” he said uncertainly.

Victor sniffed, running his hand through his hair.

“I was really useless tonight, wasn’t I?” he said.

Georgi shook his head.

“I was the same when I first heard my uncle had died.”

“Makkachin was just a dog.”

“What does that even mean?” Georgi muttered, tiredly rubbing a dirt-stained hand over his face.

Makkachin was a dog, but he had been Victor’s companion nevertheless. Obviously losing a human life was different, but grief cared little about logic, especially when the blow had only just come.

“Nothing,” Victor admitted. “That’s just what you’re supposed to say, right?”

Georgi turned around and embraced Victor, a touch of damp, freezing bodies, which no doubt spread mud all over Victor. Victor stood stiff in his arms for a moment before his weight sagged against Georgi, who just managed to catch it. He wondered if Victor had collapsed when he thankfully seemed to find some strength in his knees again and held Georgi tightly, his face pressing against the crook of Georgi’s neck.

They stood hugging in the rain for far too long for it to be comfortable, but in truth Georgi had felt useless until this moment, too, and was grateful for it. When they parted, Georgi bent down to pick up the shovel.

“Do you want to go inside?” he asked, pointing towards the house.

“No, I don’t want to deal with my parents right now.”

He’d guessed that answer. Georgi had only met the older Nikiforovs at competitions, since young Victor had always been picked up from practice by the butler, but it had been enough to note the air of cool arrogance with which they met the world, one Victor at times copied for show but thankfully had never fully grown into. Georgi took off to put the shovel back into the shed and pull the door shut while Victor still stood at the grave. Above them, the clouds poured torrential rain. Victor wasn’t even wearing a jacket.

“We need to go home soon. If the storm gets any worse, I’m not sure I will be able to drive,” Georgi said slowly.

“Yes.”

Victor leaned down and pushed the little twig cross further down into the mound of earth so it would not get swept away.

-

Georgi sent Victor to the shower first and stripped down to nothing in the kitchen, washing his dirty hands and face with dish soap in the sink while wearing one of Victor’s too-long branded hoodies from a long-ago sponsorship. He had time to place two cups of tea on the sofa table before Victor returned. Georgi slipped into the bathroom just as silent as they had been on the whole way back. When he emerged from the scalding shower, still feeling like the cold rain had crept into his bones and left mildew there, he found newscasters chatting away on Victor’s laptop, filling the spacious studio apartment with their measured voices.

Normalcy came crashing down in one sudden, uncomfortable moment. This didn’t feel so different from the mornings when he’d woken up here, coming from the bathroom knowing they would now sit over their high-fibre cornflakes talking about rink gossip or training regimes and not the fact that they had ended up in bed together again.

“Should I go?” he asked. “I’d need to borrow a few more of your clothes.”

“You can stay.”

Victor sat under a blanket which he lifted for Georgi to slot in next to him. When Georgi was in reach, he put his arm around his shoulders and tugged him closer. Georgi felt his cheeks heat up. They’d fucked, but they had never cuddled.

“Well, you’re not as soft as Makkachin,” Victor muttered.

“Sorry,” Georgi answered, since he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

They both looked at the laptop screen where a series of largely depressing world news chased each other under a monotone voiceover.

“Not that I mind being here,” Georgi said, after a while, “but are you sure there’s nobody else you want to call?”

“Why would I?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ you?” Georgi burst out, since it was the one question that had weighed on his mind from the start.

Victor briefly turned his eyes away from the screen to give him a withering sideways glance. “You’re an idiot,” he said. “I’m in love with you.”

Georgi just stared at him. If it had been any other situation, he would have jumped from the couch for joy. He had a crush, after all, and this was also the first time in his life anyone had confessed to him, not the other way around. He wanted to believe it with every shred of his being – but after all he’d seen tonight, he had to grudgingly admit to himself that Victor wasn’t in any state to discuss their love life, or anything else for that matter.

“Oh. That... makes sense, then.”

He settled back against Victor, taking his hand, and keeping his eyes glued to the laptop so he wouldn’t be tempted to do anything else. It was how he fell asleep eventually, exhausted to the bone.

-

His phone’s alarm woke him at seven in the morning and Georgi found himself alone on Victor’s couch. He had just gotten his feet on the ground when Victor walked out of the bedroom door, dressed in black jeans and a form-fitting v-neck shirt.

“Good morning,” Georgi said.

“Morning.”

Victor continued into the kitchen. Georgi padded after him, heart in his throat. He hoped Victor would speak, but he didn’t.

“About what you said last night,” he began, as Victor rummaged through the mostly empty fridge.

He could not put the conversation on hold any longer. He’d woken up with Victor’s words echoing inside his skull.

“What is there to say?” Victor gave back, putting a carton of oat milk on the counter with a little too much force.

Apparently, Georgi’s confused silence was enough of a prompt. Victor slapped the fridge shut and turned to him.

“I know you,” he said with a shrug, his carelessness badly put on. “I’ve known you for years. If you like someone, you don’t tell them ‘that makes sense’.”

He imitated Georgi’s stupidly flustered tone quite well, which made Georgi flush with embarrassment.

“This was different,” he argued. “What was I supposed to do? An hour ago, you’d been crying over your dog’s grave.”

“So if you had no reason to reject me, why did you have to pile that on top?!” Victor snapped.

“You looked like you were having a nervous breakdown!” Georgi said, raising his voice as well, always too easily drawn into arguments by Victor. “You think I’m going to kiss you like that?” 

Victor stared at him with eyes narrowed, but then took a deep breath. “Well...” He glanced at the counter, long lashes lowered, before he looked up again, almost hopeful. “I’m not having one now?”

Georgi swallowed, his agitation subsiding in a flash. He’d kissed Victor before, but not like this, not with the idea in mind that it sealed something greater. However, he didn’t want to let another chance pass by and so he rounded the kitchen island and walked up to him.

Victor stood there with an expectant look on his face, doing nothing to ease the moment, but Georgi did not let it deter him. Placing his hands on Victor’s shoulders, he leaned in to press a kiss on his mouth.

Then, without warning, Victor’s hands were on his hips and he pulled him in. There was _need_ in that movement and though Georgi did not quite know if it really was for him or for any sort of connection, he forced his doubts aside. He always was optimistic in love.

They had never kissed like this, or maybe he never had, having always told himself to pretend this was less than it was to him. He felt light-headed and light-hearted.

“I didn’t even think you liked me,” he said, looking into Victor’s ice eyes.

“Why not?” Victor asked, genuinely puzzled, cocking his head. “We slept together.”

“You never really paid that much attention to me before. Besides, you called me an idiot even _while_ saying you’re in love with me.”

Victor frowned, though he had the sense to look at least a little guilty.

“You know me.”

“Yes. You’re mean,” Georgi said, giving him an indignant look.

He could not keep from smiling, though, and Victor chuckled.

Georgi did know Victor: direct to the point of cruelty, yet still so charming he could break a much stronger man than Georgi while barely trying. Georgi was admittedly worried he’d pick the pieces of his heart from the ground again in six months’ time, but at least that wasn’t new – and he’d been given a chance.

“It was good not to bury Makkachin alone,” Victor said quietly.

“Of course.” Georgi still stood close, Victor holding his hands. “Have you texted your parents yet?”

“Why?”

“There’s a grave in their garden with a cross and everything. They might ask the police to dig it up. I think we forgot the blanket, too, and I didn’t lock the shed...”

“You might be right,” Victor admitted.

Now that Victor seemed to be at least a little more stable, Georgi wanted to ask more, like why Victor had told him he’d wanted to skip the season and why his skating had looked like he’d lost his best friend long before Makkachin had died, but he could ask these tomorrow, or another day, since now he might have the right to care that deeply.

“I could call Yakov and cancel practice for you. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“You’re always so helpful,” Victor teased.

Georgi just raised a brow at him. However, when he turned away and leaned down to pick up his phone, suddenly arms slung around him from the back. Victor pressed a kiss on his neck.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Georgi knew he was blushing bright red, but from Victor’s smile, maybe that was what he’d wanted to see; and as long as he was smiling again like he meant it, even for a little while, Georgi was happy.


End file.
